Mission Tara
by Psychotic Pyro Fairy
Summary: Almost sixteen years ago Cobra tried to create a super-soldier using Scarlett's and Snake Eyes' DNA. Now watch as the teenaged result is caught in the middle of something bigger than what anyone had imagined. Rated T to be safe. FREE TO A GOOD HOME.


This has been buzzing around in my head for a while now, and I'm just now staring to write it down. Hope you like it!

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Tara stepped off the bus and headed towards the ramshackle brick building that was her home. Her backpack felt as if it were loaded with weights, and, in a manner of speaking, the armfuls of homework that it held would keep her weighed down during what was supposed to be Easter Break.

Muttering under her breath, she climbed the concrete steps, weeds pushing their way through the cracks unhindered. The steps would fall apart someday, and even now there were chunks of the corners missing. But why heal the hand when the whole arm is about to fall off? The entire building was derelict, really, which was why they had gotten so cheap. It probably wasn't safe, and if someone started jumping around upstairs you could definitely tell. But it had held for as long as Tara could remember, and it was home.

The door creaked as she opened it, a sound that set Tara's nerves on end. There was nothing she hated more than things that aren't supposed to make noise making noise.

"Baby girl, that had better be you!" came a call from the kitchen.

Tara sighed and closed the door behind her, rousing another creak from the rusty hinges. She dropped her bag on the floor, next to the staircase that led up to the second story, which held her room, a bathroom, and Gina's room.

"Yeah, Gina. It's me." Tara answered. She'd lived with Gina, her adoptive mother, for eight of her fifteen years. Before that she had lived with her biological parents, but Tara didn't remember those years due to trauma induced amnesia. That's what the doctor said, anyway.

She kicked off her camoflauge Air Speed skater shoes and tossed her black windbreaker over the arm of the easy chair, and it promptly fell off onto the floor.

The hardwood floor felt slick beneath her stockinged feet, and Tara had to restrain herself from sliding into the kitchen like a figure skater. Gina wouldn't appreciate the teen running into her as she took something out of the oven. Or some such culinary action.

"So how was school, child?" Gina asked as Tara stepped lightly onto the linoleum of the kitchen floor. The fridge door hid her mother from view.

"It was fine," Tara replied as she picked absently at a chip in the counter top. "I got a **B-** in Algebra II, do I won't fail. Hopefully." The school year had been really busy, what with tournaments and things. And so although she was usually a straight **A** student, the excitment had caused her to neglect her most loathed subject.

The fridge door slammed shut almost the moment the last syllable left Tara's mouth, revealing a stocky African-American woman of medium height, about mid-thirties. Her short, curly black hair was hidden beneath a tie-dye bandanna. One fly-away strand of hair had escaped Gina's attempt to restrain it, and stuck straight out in such a way that only an onlooker would notice it. Tara bit her lip, steeling herself against the tirade that she knew was coming. And against reaching out to fix Gina's hair, which would annoy the woman to no end.

There was nothing Gina hated more than being fussed over.

The said woman perched her hands on her hips and fixed her adopted daughter with a look that made the teen want to turn invisible, run and hide, or melt into the floor. Or all three.

However, Tara resolutely returned the gaze, her jaw clanched stubbornly. She'd found it was always best to face things head-on.

"Baby girl, I don't know how many times I've told you to keep your grades up! I know you've been busy this semester, but a **B- **ridiculous!" Gina ranted, raising her hands in the air for emphasis. "They'll kick you out of Tai Kwan Do if you don't keep your grades up, you know that."

Sighing, Tara nodded. She knew, but she was getting to the point where she didn't really care anymore. Even though she loved martial arts, they took up almost all of her free time, with practice every other weekday at seven in the evening, and on saturdays at six AM. And her friends meant the world to her. She just didn't know how to balance everything.

_"I'm only up when you're not down!"_

"What in blue blazes is that?" Gina asked, trying to figure out what was singing.

Tara chuckled. "My new ringtone for Trevor," she explained.

_"Don't wanna fly if you're still on the ground!" _

Tara pulled her silver Razer out of her back pocket, briefly admiring the tribal dragon Sally had added to it's already large repretoire of doodles and stickers. "Yup?" she gave her customary greeting upon opening the phone.

"Hey," came her boyfriend's Trevor's voice. "Did you forget to ask Gina?"

"Until just now I did," Tara replied, her face heating up. She could hear Trevor and some one else laughing in the background. "Am I on speaker phone?" she asked suddenly. "Yes." Aaron answered. "Oh gee, thanks guys." Tara sighed. "Hang on, I'll ask."

"What have you been scheming this time?" Gina asked, digging around in the fridge again, still unable to find whatever it was she had been looking for before.

"Well, could Trevor, Sally, Kyle and Aaron come over in say... Hey guys, when were you planning on coming?"

"I'm at Aaron's Dad's house," Trevor told her. "We'll probably head over in about an hour, and pick up Sally and Kyle on the way."

"So that would probably take about 15 minutes, and then from here to Kyle's house would be about... ten minutes?" Tara figured in her head.

"Yeah, so about an hour and a half," Trevor confirmed.

"Ok," she turned back to Gina, covering the mouthpiece. "So is it ok if they come over in about ninety minutes?"

Gina's brow furrowed in thought. "So long as they're gone by ten."

"Thank you!" Tara squealed, giving the woman a hug. "You're welcome, Baby girl." Gina said as she returned the girl's hug. Then Tara turned back to the phone conversation.

"It'll work!" she exlcaimed happily.

"Cool. See you then. Love you," Trevor said.

"Love you more. Bye."

Tara shut her phone and slipped it back into her pocket. "You should have asked them to pick up some butter on the way," Gina said, pulling her short frame out of the fridge. "I would have made cookies."

"Really?? Hang on, I'll call him back."

Tara relayed the information to Trevor, who said he would be happy to pick some up so long as he got some of the batter. "He says he'll do it so long as he gets some batter," Tara explained to Gina. "In that case, tell him to get two tubs. Everyone will be trying to get some." Gina warned. Laughing, Tara relayed this too Trevor as well. "Ok, ok, I'll do it," he agreed, also laughing.

"Thanks, you're the best! Bye."

She put the phone back in her pocket again, then grabbed the recipe book off the top of the fridge. "Do you want to make them while I clean, or do you want me to help?" she asked, handing Gina the tattered old notebook. "No, that's alright," Gina said, shooing her out. "You straighten things up, and if there's time get as much of that homework done as possible. That was a mighty big thump when you came in."

Blushing, Tara nodded in resignation.

--

Ok, that's it. Hope you enjoyed it. If you notice any errors, please let me know. Thanks!

THE Psychotic Pyro Fairy


End file.
